


it's a gift and a curse

by brutalend



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst, Character Study, F/M, M/M, Sexual Assault, Sylvix (I promise), slowburn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-28
Updated: 2020-01-26
Packaged: 2021-02-27 00:53:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 6
Words: 16,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21998557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brutalend/pseuds/brutalend
Summary: Sylvain returned to his dorm just before dawn. His lip was split. His body vacant.After nights this long, this late, this low (even for him), Sylvain was left with nothing inside him but a dull, prosaic ache.
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Felix Hugo Fraldarius, Dorothea Arnault/Sylvain Jose Gautier, Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Sylvain Jose Gautier
Comments: 24
Kudos: 257





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Miklan is dead. Sylvain copes in the only way he knows how.

When Sylvain fucked women, he didn’t take his time.

It was quick, dirty, and desperate. He paid for dinner, brought them back to his room, and they’d know he was easy. Sylvain José Gautier, the easiest lay in Fódlan, sought after for his noble bloodline and powerful crest. He’d come for just about anyone that pretended to love him for a night.

Only, Sylvain didn’t want to come for just anyone. He always had someone specific in mind, haunting the edges of his vision, lithe and harsh and untouchable. Sylvain would reach for him, in his fantasies, while blowing his load into some girl who recognized his face at the tavern and saw an opportunity.

 _Felix Hugo Fraldarius_ , just out of reach, with his intolerant glare and biting words. Sylvain’s most intrusive obsession.

Sometimes Sylvain was fucked _by_ women, who laid him out, pinned him down, and mounted him like some prized noble steed. And Sylvain didn’t look at them, just zoned out, his gaze flat and unfeeling. They kept fucking him—through his silence. Scratched his chest, pulled his hair, filled the room with their own moans. He wasn’t present in those moments. Dissociating. If he pushed her away once their clothes were off he’d be called a jerk, maybe make her cry, so he let her use him instead until she was done or he could muster up the energy to fake an orgasm to get her off.

That’s all they wanted anyway, right? His magic Gautier seed. Just his cum. So that’s what he gave, hoping when they were done, they’d stay, and he’d have a warm body pressed against his for one night.

Some women were into weird shit: hitting, blindfolds, a riding crop—but Sylvain didn’t care. People liked what they liked, and sometimes he enjoyed the pain. Depends on how badly his day went. He was collared, once, as she demanded the power of his crest—which could have been hot, if the metaphor hadn’t hit a little too close to home. Collared by his crest. A slave to his name.

The next morning, it was always the same thing: he couldn’t look at them without a feeling of disgust rising in him. _He_ felt disgusting. So he’d dump them later that day in the courtyard, and they’d slap his face in public as if they hadn’t slapped his face last night just to see him flinch with his dick buried in them to its hilt.

“You are bruised strangely,” Dedue stated one day, in a manner so straightforward and honest, Sylvain almost told him yeah, he hated it. Don’t look.

Sylvain tossed his shirt onto the ground, returning his lance to a defensive position while sparring, a sheen of sweat glistening on his body. He was built, but not nearly as big as Dedue, who was impenetrable and holding back in the sparring ring.

“What can I say?” Not the truth. He could feel himself grinning. “Some women are feisty.”

Dedue did not reply. He studied him seriously with his deep-set eyes, axe still lowered at his side. Sylvain started to shift uncomfortably in the silence. Pain? He can do. Silence? No thanks.

“You, uh, got something you want to say?”

“You are much like His Highness.”

Sylvain rested his lance on one bare shoulder. “Oh yeah?” He added cheerfully, “Dimitri into feisty women too?”

“No.” Dedue shook his head sternly. “He, too, smiles when he does not mean it.”

Sylvain laughed. He laughed to combat the feelings that Dedue was dragging up from somewhere hollow. He laughed to maintain the mask. Can’t have his disguise ruined yet. His friends needed at least _one_ unbroken person among them to lighten the mood.

“What, did you never learn how to fake a smile, Dedue? You should try it sometime. The ladies might think you’re less scary.”

Dedue did not reply. Only looked at him solemnly, staring deep into his soul or some shit. 

Man, Sylvain was really starting to miss Felix. Felix would bully him. Felix would take this opportunity to say something unpitying that they both regretted. No wonder Dimitri kept Dedue around: the guy really makes you _think_ with all this silence, something Sylvain was not trying to make a habit of.

“Anyway,” Sylvain added, attempting to end the conversation. “Don’t worry about me. Haven’t you heard? I just can’t help myself. So many cute girls, not enough time in the day.”

Dedue answered him with more silence.

“Well,” Sylvain stretched. “I think I’m done if you are.”

Taking Dedue’s reticent communication as a sign that sparring was over, Sylvain returned his training lance to its mount, grabbed his shirt from the ground and wiped the sweat from his face with it. _Note to self: don’t remove your shirt in front of Dedue. He makes it weird._ Dedue returned his training axe, too (a weapon much too small for him) and looked steadily at Sylvain.

“I apologize if I offended you by acknowledging your injuries,” he stated gravely. “I will not overstep again.”

 _Injuries_. Wow. That made it sound really bad.

“No worries, Dedue.” Sylvain clasped his hands behind his head and winked. “Next time we spar, don’t hold back so much.”

* * *

Sometimes Sylvain wasn’t fucked by _women_ at all. A drunken occurrence (that used to be rare).

Even without the promise of crest babies or an arranged noble marriage, Sylvain was pretty popular.

_No gag reflex._

* * *

Sylvain returned to his dorm just before dawn. His lip was split. His body vacant.

After nights this long, this late, this low (even for him), Sylvain was left with nothing inside him but a dull, prosaic ache.

He promised poetry to them by day, they promised poetry inside him all night long—then nothing.

Another scandal, they’d call it. Wild carousing.

Sylvain was kept afloat by the thought of training with Felix tomorrow. He fell asleep in his uniform on top of his bedsheets without ever taking his shoes off.

* * *

Unlike Dedue, Felix never held back when he sparred.

He refused to disrespect his opponent or his blade by wasting time with dampened combat. Felix asserted that practice battles should be treated like real battles: with ruthless intensity, bearing death at the end of one’s blade. His training sword was almost as lethal as a real one.

“Your form is pathetic.” His sharp words matched the cut and slash of his weapon. His feet stepped lightly while he took the offensive. “Block, you fool!”

Sylvain parried Felix’s flurry of relentless blows. What Felix lacked in strength, he made up for in agility. He was lithe and quick, undistracted and purposeful, with every strike a calculated transition into the next. Sylvain was forced backward, capable of blocking, but incapable of spotting an opening. Felix had no openings. _That’s probably why he had trouble making friends._

Sylvain’s brief inattention was instantly detected by Felix. He swept in, taking a single stride to close the space between them, intimate and lethal with the edge of his training sword held at a diagonal along Sylvain’s throat.

Sylvain lifted his chin, consumed at once by the unwavering heat of Felix’s gaze. Liquid amber. Scalding. Sylvain swallowed, painfully aware of the emptiness of his own mouth, the loneliness of his tongue, as he dragged his lower lip between his teeth. Felix’s eyes flickered down to Sylvain’s lips and then back up again, an imperceptible break in eye contact that sent a shock of arousal through Sylvain’s lower stomach.

“Guess I forgot to block,” Sylvain said, more breathless than he should have sounded, and Felix’s face flushed like he was suddenly aware of the closeness of their bodies.

“Your skills are deplorable,” he snapped, taking a step back and lowering his sword, the separation between them tangible and cold. A vacancy for sentiment. “You need to focus! What happens when it’s not my training sword at your throat, but a real one in the enemy’s hand?”

Sylvain wanted to say that he wasn’t distracted during combat with an enemy.

Sylvain wanted to say that he was just hopelessly distracted by _Felix_.

Sylvain said instead, “The _ladies_ don’t think my _skills_ are deplorable.”

Felix clenched his jaw and released air through his teeth, looking both disappointed and irate.

“Fine.” He turned his back on Sylvain. “Chase women now, die in battle later. No one will mourn the death of a fool.”

Felix sounded pissed, sure, but Sylvain thought he sensed hurt beneath the thick layer of apathy. He approached Felix from behind as Felix deposited his training sword. Felix reached both hands up behind his head to fix his hair.

“Hey,” Sylvain began, pausing. Felix should know that there was only one promise in life that Sylvain would never break. “I won’t—"

Felix spun around and shouldered past him, cutting him off. “I’m not interested.” He strode toward the entrance of the knights’ hall, not looking back at Sylvain, posture tense. “Invite someone else to join in your debauchery. I don’t have the stomach for it.”

Felix stormed out. Sylvain did not chase after him to ask him to dinner this time.

Sylvain knew he was hurting Felix—but he didn’t know how to stop.

* * *

On occasion he’d stumble into a dorm, half pushed, half carried. They would insult him like Felix. They would bully him like Felix. Two at once to tyrannize his senses.

But the touch would feel wrong. A sin to endure. Every hand on his body a blaspheme uttered on consecrated ground.

No one had Felix’s swordsman hands: attentive, unyielding, honorable.

Only Felix’s touch would feel honest—but even lies made Sylvain moan.

* * *

In a different time, maybe there’d be a song about him: a grand courtesan. People traveling from far and wide to make love to the most desired lay in all the land. His room would smell like incense and wine. He’d wear red silk robes, or whatever.

But this was a monastery. He was the Gautier heir. 

He was not grand, but soiled.

 _Indefensibly worthless_ , Dedue would tell Sylvain he’d heard people say. Dedue would defend him anyway. Although a cute gesture, it would be futile.

 _Indefensibly worthless_ , they’d say again at 3 a.m., depriving him of all redemption: spitting in his face, lifting his legs, and fucking him senseless until his eyes rolled back in his head.

_Heh, that’s a bit harsh._

* * *

Ingrid introduced her first as the “Mystical Songstress,” then, Dorothea Arnault. Her best friend. An idol for Mittelfrank Opera Company, with unparalleled talent and beauty. Dorothea gave Ingrid a light punch to the arm for embarrassing her, then extended her hand to Sylvain as her calculated eyes measured him up and down, like taking stock of inventory. 

Sylvain knew why Ingrid introduced them: she was tired of seeing Sylvain move from one girl to the next, breaking hearts—and more tired of Sylvain falling head over heels in love with Felix, breaking his own. Ingrid thought she was doing him a favor. Sylvain admitted that, yeah, having just one person who loved him back for _him_ , not his crest, was something he had wanted, at one point. But that was ages ago, _many_ heartless fucks ago, and he’d given up on believing that some raven-haired, sharp-tongued love of his life would ever let him close enough to make things official.

Fucking was easier when he could close his eyes and think of someone else. Fucking was easier when it was just heat, sweat, and the brief delusion that someone cared about him.

Still, Ingrid looked pleased with her arrangement, and she’d gone out of her way to coordinate an eventful night in town for them, so Sylvain figured he would put in the effort to make her happy. He cared about Ingrid.

“Ah, Dorothea!” Sylvain winked as he raised her hand to his lips. She had a large hand, for a woman. Felix’s hands were not as soft, but they were smaller and dexterous. “It feels like we’ve always known each other. The name’s Sylvain.”

“Gautier, I know,” she returned, her red lips sliding into a counterfeit smile. “I’ve heard so much about you.”

“Only good things?” _Of course not._ Sylvain asked just to hear someone else say it.

“Terrible things,” Dorothea confirmed with a short, bell-like laugh. “Sylvain the skirt-chaser, the womanizer, a real naughty libertine.”

He grinned. “Those sound like good things to me.”

“Sylvain Gautier, the wealthy heir, the _only_ heir, with a crest so important that its power radiates from his body.”

“Wow, now _that’s_ creative.” Sylvain felt the ghost of unease whisper at the back of his neck. He quickly ignored it. Ingrid’s friend was pretty; he liked her long, dark hair—he really had a thing for dark hair, he admitted to himself—and Sylvain appreciated musical talent.

“Well?” Dorothea stepped forward and boldly pressed her fingertips against the front of his uniform. “Does the power really _radiate_ from your body?”

“I’m still here,” Ingrid announced plainly, crossing her arms in stern disapproval. Sylvain took a respectful step away from Dorothea, and her hand deliberately slid down the length of his shirt to catch on his belt until it dropped to her side. Ingrid continued, “Manuela’s meeting us at the tavern tonight, if you two can make it that far without stripping.”

“Sure thing,” Sylvain asserted, shrugging his arms. “I promise all clothing will stay on, milady.”

Ingrid rolled her eyes, insulted his general character, and the three left the monastery courtyard for Ingrid’s well-planned night of singing and booze. 

Dorothea studied him all night. 

The tavern had a heady, congested atmosphere. Sylvain caught her calculating gaze several times and felt his typical flirtatious confidence dwarfed by the coolness of her eye contact. She had austere green eyes, impossible to read, and borderline unfriendly. But her soft, full lips stretched into bright smiles directed purposefully at Sylvain. Her voice sang with notes of praise and admiration. So he shook free of his discomfort in favor of their shared, superficial affection.

All night, Dorothea watched him, smiled at him, and carefully pressed the tips of her fingers into his arm, his chest, his lower back, while they enjoyed the tavern’s chaotic, drunken crowd. All night, they flirted. All night, Dorothea looked at him with dishonest, cold green eyes—which made Sylvain ache for the fierce, hot amber eyes that never did. _But he was used to settling._

The press of her fingertips on his body throughout the night felt intentional and admonitory. Small puppet strings attached to every limb, as Dorothea laid her claim and established control.

Sylvain didn’t mind. He’d been a puppet his entire life.

* * *

He didn’t take Dorothea back to his room (not after the first date, that would be rude) but some girl ended up in his room anyway.

At the end of the night, Dorothea and Ingrid had departed together, leaving Sylvain at the tavern to hunt and be hunted.

Dorothea was pretty. So was this girl, he figured, although he couldn’t see her face in this position.

She gasped out his name, over and over and over.

Sylvain never asked if she had one. So when he came (pulling out, across her back, unceremoniously) only one name threatened to escape his throat, through his teeth, across his lips.

He didn’t say it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is chapter 1 of the first fic i've ever written thanks to the dark encouragement of sarah, milo, and ellie who also love pain.
> 
> this fic ran away from me and i've written 22k so far. stick around! archive warnings are for future chapters.
> 
> title is taken from "robbery" by juice wrld.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Felix shifted. Their elbows touched. No Goddess between them now: only idolatry, and the fabric of their uniforms.
> 
> Neither one dared to move.

Felix used to be cute when they were younger. Felix didn’t want to hear it, but Sylvain remembered his curious smiles, his dark hair in loose, low ponytails that fell apart by midday, and his genuine tears, unrepressed, while he grieved freely.

That day, Felix’s small hands clutched at Sylvain’s shirt. Felix’s small body shook with anguish. Felix’s mouth was open in a scream that never came. 

Sylvain realized that the loss Felix felt with Glenn’s death was an agony he never truly recovered from. Sylvain figured that the news of one’s worst nightmare becoming a reality would make the rest of life’s tragedies feel like a sunset on a Sunday: a bit sad, with a touch of anxiety, but ultimately inevitable. The weekend must end. Monday must arrive.

Felix never held on to Sylvain and cried again. But somehow, he held on.

So when Sylvain arrived late to class that Monday morning, he wasn’t surprised that Felix had saved a seat for him at their usual table. Felix was looking at the board, attentively listening to the professor’s lecture, relaxed in a way he rarely looked around Sylvain. Sylvain waited a few moments before letting his presence be known. He wanted to stare at this Felix for just a few minutes longer: his messy ponytail, his neatly pressed vest, the sharp angle of his left cheekbone, the way his hand gripped his pen, how he easily absorbed the lesson, a quick learner intensely dedicated to success.

Felix’s eyes wandered across the classroom for a second before they landed on Sylvain standing near the back of the room, and a vague emotion flashed across his face before he settled on a glare. They wouldn’t talk about the argument they had had during yesterday’s spar. Petty conflicts were beneath Felix, especially the Felix in front of him now, and Sylvain had mastered the art of going with the flow.

“I had a date,” Sylvain declared playfully as he approached, sliding out his chair next to Felix and straddling the back of it to face him, legs outstretched. “We really hit it off. I think she’s the one.”

The class shuffled and turned to face Sylvain’s disruptive entrance. The Professor paused mid-sentence, leveled him with a silencing look, before continuing their lecture.

“I don’t care.” Felix’s voice was tired and annoyed. He remained facing forward. “Focus on the lesson.”

The Professor was at the front of the room, instructing the class on a new Reason spell in a firm but monotonous voice. The classroom always felt too big for its purpose, with rows of solid wooden tables and chairs spread out beneath a high ceiling. Sylvain could talk, pass notes, doodle, or even leave class and go fairly unnoticed. Either the Professor didn’t see him or they just didn’t care. They really were a strange and expressionless person.

“Don’t you want to know who it was with?” Sylvain jeered, more quietly this time. He yearned for Felix’s attention.

“No.”

“Dorothea.”

“The commoner.”

Sylvain feigned a hurt frown. “Rude! She’s more than that. She showed a real interest.”

“Of course she did.” Felix turned his gaze from the board now to give Sylvain his attention, whispering fiercely, “She bears no crest, and the weight of yours is second only to Dimitri’s. Use your head.”

“Well, I can’t blame her for wanting money. A better life,” Sylvain returned, watching the way Felix’s arms tensed in his white shirt when Sylvain continued on about women, watching the way his jaw tightened and his chin raised. Sylvain knew he was pissing Felix off, but Felix was also listening, so Sylvain couldn’t stop. If he couldn’t have his affection, he’d take his fury. “I’m just looking on the bright side: she’s hot. Like, really hot. She has long, dark hair and her eyes are green and super cold. I think I’m in love.”

 _And he was in love_ —but not with a woman he’d only been on one date with. That would be an insult to love.

The Professor was describing Thunder, a magic tome that summoned a single bolt of lightning from the Heavens to strike the selected enemy target. Sylvain was more interested in Fire magic, anyway. He could miss this lesson to whisper with Felix in the back of the classroom.

But Felix abruptly pushed his chair away from the table and stood. The sound caught the attention of their classmates. Ingrid glanced back and gave them a look of disapproval. The Professor was unfazed, continuing instruction despite the disruption (they were used to chaos, as an instructor of child soldiers.) Sylvain looked up at Felix with surprise, eyebrows lifted.

“Since you’re an insatiable good-for-nothing that insists on distracting us both,” Felix derided, “I’ll sit elsewhere.”

“Aww Felix, don’t be like that.” Sylvain felt his stomach turn. No affection, no fury—Felix would rather just leave him.

“Felix, wait!” Sylvain whispered loudly after him, but Felix strode to a table in the front of the room, claiming an empty seat next to Dimitri.

“Shit.” Sylvain’s head dropped forward in defeat. “Mondays suck.”

Ingrid was fully turned around in her seat, mouthing silently to Sylvain, “What’s going on?”

Sylvain shrugged at Ingrid, eyes returning to Felix. Dimitri slid him his notes, catching him up on what he had missed when Sylvain had distracted him.

Sylvain watched the tension leave Felix’s shoulders. Sylvain watched Dimitri lean in and point at something he’d written. Sylvain watched Felix nod, brush his hair from his face, and look back at Dimitri. The golden prince.

Why did Sylvain suddenly feel so sick?

* * *

_Insatiable_.

Sylvain pictured that word formed by Felix’s tongue and snaked around his dick.

 _Insatiable_.

It was the middle of the day. He shouldn’t be doing this. Behind the stables, concealed by wooden crates, shoving his cock down some girl’s throat. (Ironic, how easy it was to get laid at a monastery: everyone praying in church and boiling in lust.)

 _Insatiable_.

The word sounded like lips brushing, like hands down his back, like a stranger’s tongue licking the sticky pre-cum off the head of his cock.

“Good girl,” Sylvain praised, with a fistful of her shoulder-length blonde hair in his hand. Like Dimitri’s, he thought, if he grew it out a bit. (Would Dimitri give a good blowjob? Was it impolite to ask?) She took Sylvain deep into her throat again, tight and wet, and Sylvain panted quietly in appreciation.

He’d have to ask Dedue what his opinion was, (when the guy was unarmed).

 _Insatiable_.

Always yearning. Never full.

* * *

The professor must have noticed the tension in class, because they asked both Sylvain and Felix to dine together with them that afternoon.

Felix arrived sweaty from training and Sylvain arrived sweaty from a very recent orgasm.

The professor did not speak, but ate with them in earnest, and seemed comfortable with the prolonged silence.

Sylvain was not comfortable. In fact, he couldn’t take his eyes off of the sweat on the nape of Felix’s neck. He could so easily lean over and lick it off, drag his tongue up to his ear. But also, a feeling he didn’t experience with anyone else: he wanted to ask him how his day was, try and lift his spirits, hold him tight in his arms. Like he used to, pretending Felix belonged only to him.

Felix’s perpetual bratty scowl made Sylvain fall more in love. His heart started to ache again.

“Inviting both of us to dine like this,” Sylvain began, one elbow propped on the table to gesture with an open hand between him and Felix. “You must really like the sight of us together, huh, Professor? Are you into that?”

Sylvain winked at the professor. Felix released air through clenched teeth and sat forward in his chair.

“Enough. You’re ruining my appetite.” Felix’s voice was petulant in a way that always got Sylvain going.

Despite saying that, Felix continued to eat what Sylvain knew was one of his favorite meals. Sylvain wanted to make a joke about how Felix couldn’t resist good meat, but for maybe the first time in his life, he decided to hold his tongue.

Sylvian slung his right arm around Felix’s shoulders, pulling him playfully toward him. Felix fit snugly against his side, feeling even smaller than he looked.

“This guy acts angry, like a cat, but all you gotta do is feed him his favorite meal and he’ll settle down.”

Felix stiffened under his arm and shoved him away.

“And you’re a dog that will eat anything but will never settle down,” he retorted angrily, face flushed. “Don’t touch me so familiarly.”

“What?” Sylvain feigned hurt, pouting at Felix. “Are we not best friends? Brothers in arms?”

“Well, I didn’t have a say in it.”

Felix took another bite of food, a little too aggressively, and the professor sat in amused silence.

“Hey, Felix,” Sylvain ventured. He clasped both hands behind his head and leaned back casually. “Do you want to spar tomorrow? I’m feeling kind of restless, figured I should take your advice and train for a change. What do you say? Join me?”

Felix shook his head as he swallowed his food. “No. Sorry.”

Sylvain caught his breath.

Felix looked at him, expression annoyed. “I already have a sparring partner for tomorrow afternoon.”

Sylvain forced himself to inhale. He dropped his arms back down to the table and asked as casually as possible, “Oh yeah? Who’s brave enough to face the wrath of your sword?”

“Dimitri.”

Sylvain’s stomach sank like a stone tossed into freshly fallen snow, immediately hitting the frozen earth beneath.

“His Royal Highness in the flesh.” Sylvain forced a grin. His taunting voice did not betray the hollow feeling growing inside him. “That’ll be a match to behold.”

“I’m not interested in competing with that bloodthirsty boar.” Wow. The way Felix spoke about Dimitri, you’d think His Highness was an ex. “I’m merely helping him prepare for the lance tournament.”

The professor looked at Sylvain and lifted their eyebrows expectantly.

“Yeah?” Sylvain looked at them, then back at Felix. “A lance tournament? Am I supposed to compete or something, too?”

“You should,” Felix stated, glancing sideways at Sylvain with an expression he was struggling to read. Felix still looked pissed, but something else was there. “Your skills with a lance are unpolished and reckless, but...”

“What?” Sylvain grinned, revealing all of his teeth. “Come on. Tell me.”

“Forget it.” Felix looked back at his nearly empty plate.

“Were you going to say something nice to me, Felix?”

“I said forget it.” Felix cleared the last bites of food and slammed his fork down. “I’ll see you at the lance tournament.”

Sylvain felt the sharp edges of his chest begin to soften again. A warmth returned.

He leaned close to Felix, said, “You’ll see me recklessly win.”

Felix didn’t leave the dining hall until Sylvain did.

* * *

After their second date, Dorothea had her tongue so deep in Sylvain’s mouth it was like she was reclaiming every inch of his insides, teeth and all.

They were back in _her_ room, not his—which made him feel a subtle loss of control. Dorothea’s room was fashionable, decorated with tasteful red accents and silk black sheets on her bed where they sat. It smelled like roses, or something else distinctly floral, and she’d drawn her curtains closed for the night.

Sylvain pulled back from their make-out to gulp for air and ask with sudden sincerity, “Hey, quick question: do you like me?” 

Dorothea looked a bit surprised, searched his gaze for a second, before she pouted her freshly swollen lips. “Of course. Can’t you tell?” And she pulled his head back with one hand in his hair, exposing his throat. She bit and licked beneath his jaw and up to his ear, murmuring into it, “I like everything about you.”

Sylvain forced a light chuckle and said, “Yeah, yeah. Of course I can tell.” She took his left earlobe gently between her teeth and lightly tongued it. “I’m just curious. You mentioned my family name and my crest when we first met, so I—“

Dorothea’s hand slid between his legs and boldly gripped him. “I’d like you without the name or the crest,” she spoke warmly into his ear, palming him through his uniform pants. “Even if you were an old man, or a peasant, or an orphan on the streets, my heart cares not.”

With her words purring in his ear and her expert hand working him over, Sylvain felt pleasure clouding his senses. He was hard now, too, and her fingers wrapped themselves around the shape of his erection through his pants. Sylvain closed his eyes and groaned.

“Just kidding,” she revealed, voice lilting like a song. “I just wanted to try saying it.”

“Ouch!” Sylvain’s eyes shot open as she squeezed him roughly this time. He tried to squirm away, but she kept one hand between his legs and her other remained at the back of his head, tangled in his hair.

“ _Of course_ it’s better that you have money,” Dorothea stated, holding him in place with her hands and her cold, indecipherable eyes.

So Felix was right about Dorothea, as he was right about most things: she wanted him for his crest. Sylvain thought of his friend, angry and glaring, deserving an _I-told-you-so_ moment.

Sylvain let out a short laugh at the thought, then lifted his hips into Dorothea’s hand.

“Wow, Dorothea,” he provoked, uncaring now about himself or these circumstances. “You’re pretty handsy for a second date. Was my flirting really that persuasive?”

“Entirely persuasive.” Dorothea straddled him, wrapping both arms loosely around his neck as she ground herself against his swollen cock, trapped in the prison of his clothing. “And paying for dinner earned you some additional praise.”

“Really, it was nothing,” Sylvain smirked and slid his hands under her skirt, gripping her ass. “Anything for the monastery's most beautiful flower, Dorothea herself.”

The disingenuous swing of his voice echoed back at him.

They didn’t fuck. Not yet.

Sylvain knew they would, inevitably—and Sylvain knew who he would be thinking about the entire time.

* * *

At choir practice inside the cathedral that morning, Felix stood next to Sylvain.

Felix refused to sing with everyone. Sylvain thought about sneaking out.

The Goddess was the space between their arms, holy and omniscient.

A space too big—but far, far too small.

Felix shifted. Their elbows touched. No Goddess between them now: only idolatry, and the fabric of their uniforms.

Neither one dared to move.

* * *

She cried when Sylvain rejected her, the girl with shoulder-length blonde hair and blowjob lips, as if she could see the prospects of wealth and status slipping through her fingers like sand.

Sylvain amped up the regret of his memorized apology, his inanimate eyes staring at the sand, too. Slipping. Slipping.

She said: _You’re worse than I thought._

Sylvain couldn’t disagree. He was worse than he thought, too.

He said: _I just want you to be happy._

* * *

Days went by.

Sylvain had perfected this new thing he had learned to do with his tongue. It was a neat little trick, so girls found his dorm room easily.

* * *

Red had a taste.

Some days Sylvain would step outside (from class, from the dining hall, from the stables) and he’d smell blood in the air. He’d taste it in his mouth. Iron and metallic.

Then he’d take a shaky breath, remember where he was, and check to make sure no one saw him with his mind somewhere else. Somewhere much, much worse, where they all had been.

A few weeks ago, the red was real.

The passage of time simply mocked them.

* * *

On an unrelated note, it got around that Sylvain Gautier always swallowed.

That much was true—but he preferred it all over his face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> writing this fic makes me feel so catholic and i've never been catholic in my life.
> 
> this is really just a vignette character study of sylvain's self-destructive sex habits... next chapter has some action!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sylvain's bad habits start to catch up with him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> inspired by Sylvain's story of Gwendal + his B-support with Ashe

“Did you fuck my daughter, you piece of shit?”

A stranger’s voice came from behind him. Sylvain started to turn around but a hand shoved him off balance and grabbed him roughly by the front of his uniform.

It was a late evening in the slums for his usual sinful pursuits and Sylvain fully expected to be treated roughly—but not quite under these circumstances.

“Hey, hey!” Sylvain raised both hands open-palmed in front of him. “I really don’t know who you’re talking about—“

“My _daughter_.” An older man growled into his face again, with three other men flanking him. He had small eyes and a thick, dark beard with grey peppering the edges of his wide square jaw. The setting sun cast their long shadows across the lonely cobblestone alley. “I heard about you from Gwendal. Should have known a rat like you would get your fucking hands on her. She came to me _crying_.”

“You’ve got the wrong guy,” Sylvain continued, quickly calculating his situation. _They definitely had the right guy._ He also picked the worst night to walk in town unarmed. “And you stink like booze, pal.”

“ _I_ stink?!” The man sputtered in his rage. “That’s rich, coming from the filthy Gautier tramp!”

“Is that what they’re calling me?” Sylvain’s eyes darted around. _Four guys? Seriously? Did they need four guys for this drama?_ “At least you know my name. Can’t say I remember your daughter’s, though.”

The man reeled back, eyes mad, and smashed the top of his head into Sylvain’s face. Sylvain buckled to the ground, hands clutching his mouth. Okay, his nose was fine, but the taste of iron was sharp, and he knew he’d bitten his tongue. That was a cheap blow. What kind of guy had the instinct to head-butt someone instead of punching them? He guessed a father defending his daughter’s honor.

“If you can fuck like a man, you can fight like one, too! Pick the kid up.”

Sylvain was hoisted up by each of his arms. Before he could retort, the man clutched his face roughly with one hand and squeezed. The setting sun glinted off the gold rings adorning each of his thick fingers. _Not very classy_.

The men holding his arms tightened their grip. Sylvain held smug eye contact with his assailant. His daughter must mean a lot to him. Fatherly love was foreign to Sylvain, but he still admired the passion.

“I’m Lord Mueller. You’ll remember it. And you’ll remember to keep your _fucking hands_ off my daughter.”

Sylvain grinned, teeth bloody. “I didn’t need to use my hands.”

Mueller. Sylvain didn’t recall that name. Not a wealthy noble family. He’d remember it now, anyway, as the man hammered it into his stomach and ribs and face with his fists. How could he “fight like a man” with both of his arms restrained?

Sylvain let out shocked grunts of pain with every hit. The impact ricocheted through his chest and stomach, knocking the breath out of him. He was unable to inhale. The gold rings were an unforgiving although effective touch; Mueller probably donned them just for the occasion.

The bruises would shine dark and deep and tender, a warning to future lovers: _don’t fuck this one. But if you do, he likes it rough._

When they seemed satisfied, Sylvain was dropped onto the ground. He drooled blood onto the cobblestone and the front of his uniform, trying to prop himself up with his arms.

Mueller was breathing heavily from the exertion of his assault, and one boot absently kicked Sylvain onto his back.

Sylvain didn’t feel bad for himself. He had to admit, he probably deserved this.

“If this rat likes to fuck so much,” Mueller said between breaths, wiping his bloody rings onto the front of his shirt. “Let’s make _him_ cry a little, too.”

The dread set in before the panic, so Sylvain didn’t even try to scramble away. They manhandled him for a few moments while he concentrated on casting Fire. He wouldn’t kill them, simply singe their nasty beards and run for it. He just needed to let the magic spread from his core to his hands, stretch out his fingertips to release the heat—

A fierce sting around his wrists tore Sylvain away from spell-casting. The pain became acute and unsparing. It cut into his flesh, finally forcing a whine out of him as they had wanted. The heat he was summoning sank back within, cool and subdued.

“Don’t even try it,” Mueller’s beardless friend warned, without a sneer or snarl like Sylvain expected. He looked down at Sylvain, eerily serious. The two men restraining him were squatting on the ground on either side of him.

Sylvain glanced up at his hands held above his head to see clear fishing wire being tightened around his wrists, binding him bloody. He paled.

“Wait, hold on,” he laughed nervously, suddenly aware of the situation he was in. Most days he contemplated death for fun, but right now he wanted to stay alive for real. This was a stupid way to die. Felix would kill him. “Hey, I can pay you off. You know my family. You’d be set for life.”

Mueller laughed too, deep and unsettling. They cinched the wire tighter and tied it off. Sylvain whined again.

“Shut up, kid,” Mueller said. “I don’t need your money, and I’m not pathetic enough to ask for it like this.”

Mueller rolled his shoulders back. He moved like a man trained to be a brawler, solid and steady, but his body had filled out like he’d been retired from the battlefield for several years now.

“Let’s hear that whine of yours again,” Mueller commanded.

The man at his right side added mockingly, “You heard that, too? What a great sound. Honesty suits him.”

Sylvain was hoisted back to his feet. The beardless man looked at him grimly. They lifted his bound arms above his head. Sylvain’s pleas and protests were quickly silenced.

The assault continued. A straightforward beating, all things considered. The more Sylvain struggled against the binding, the deeper it cut into the tender flesh of his wrists. Rope would have been more merciful.

He was almost relieved.

A part of him wanted this—the sweet retribution for his abandonment of the Goddess, of honor, of love—but he wasn’t going to investigate that part of him further.

Some things were better left suppressed.

* * *

Sylvain was on the battlefield.

Or rather, Sylvain was staring at himself on the battlefield, recumbent on the ground.

His body was motionless. Swollen intestines spilled out of his open stomach.

A crow was perched on his rib cage, pecking away at his exposed and rotting organs. The crow paused as if it heard him, then jerked its head to look in his direction.

It fixed him with wide, human, cold green eyes.

* * *

Sylvain must have briefly blacked out because a light slap to the face woke him. First, he was aware of the cool, rough cobblestone against his right cheek. Then the blood, filling his mouth and roaring in his ears. Sylvain blinked and squinted up with great effort at the silhouettes hovering over him.

Mueller and the two restrainers were huffing with their sleeves rolled up. The beardless man stood to the side; he hadn’t participated in this second round, only watched. They had finally stopped.

Mueller seemed visibly calmer. He gave Sylvain a slow once-over with his small, predatory eyes.

“Mueller,” the beardless man said, holding grim eye contact with Sylvain. “I think the kid gets the point.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Mueller declared loudly. “We’re not going to do anything _else_ to you, Gautier.”

The two other men chuckled darkly, apparently in on the same joke, then backed off. Sylvain could guess what _else_ ex-soldiers like these guys did to people they assaulted in the slums. Some men got off on power trips. Sylvain couldn’t relate.

“You just needed to be put into your fucking place. Now,” Mueller grabbed him by his shirt again and pulled him onto his feet. Sylvain teetered there, half-blind, his world spinning. His right hand groped the air uselessly for support, resting on Mueller’s arm. “Run somewhere safe.” Mueller shoved him off. Sylvain hit the brick wall behind him with a thud, staying upright. “Because if I spot you anywhere near my daughter again, _I’ll fucking kill you_.”

When they were out of sight and the sound of their heavy footsteps had faded, Sylvain slid down the wall and groaned with exhaustion. He bent his knees and draped his arms weakly over them, wrists still bound, staring at the ground where drops of his own blood had splattered across the cobblestone.

The sun had set completely now, with its pink glow still lingering like a friend hesitating in the doorway after a long day, not yet ready to say goodbye and have it end.

Still, twilight was the perfect time for goodbyes.

Goodbye empty one-night stand. Goodbye raging abusive big brother. Goodbye cute childhood best friend, who used to cry and hug him but now holds the sharp pieces of himself together with great fury and greater hurt.

Twilight glowed red, for just a moment, before succumbing to the night.

Sylvain peeled the fishing wire out of his sticky, bloody wrists like pulling up a long, fine branch from the mud by the stables.

* * *

Back at the monastery, Dorothea was standing at the gate, leaning against the wall opposite the guard. She was absently studying her nails and didn’t look up from them as Sylvain limped past her, clutching his ribs. At least one was definitely broken.

“You were out late,” she sang after him. Sylvain stopped walking, too tired for banter. She looked up from her bright red nails, expressionless. “And you look downright awful. What happened to your face?”

“Long story.”

Had she been waiting up for him? Sylvain was almost touched.

“Does it have something to do with the very angry girls I ran into earlier this evening? They were asking for your dormitory room number.” Dorothea pushed herself off the wall to approach him slowly, eyeing his busted mouth and bloody clothing. She didn’t appear moved. “You have truly made quite a reputation for yourself.”

“So I’m told.” Sylvain’s mouth hurt too much to smile. Dorothea’s collected demeanor made him uneasy, but he sort of appreciated it.

“The girls sounded like they wanted revenge,” she continued. “Now why would that be?”

“Probably the Mueller girl.” Sylvain gave a small shrug, trying to conceal a wince. “Had a run-in with her father just tonight, as it were.”

“Interesting.” Dorothea leveled him with a cool gaze. “Because it wasn’t Eva Mueller, with her lovely blonde hair. It was Margery. She’s brunette, if that’s how you remember them.”

A trap. Sylvain sighed. He’d only stepped into it because his head was swimming with pain.

“Okay, you got me,” he conceded. “Sometimes I forget a name or two.”

Dorothea crossed her arms elegantly under her chest. “So do you sleep with these girls before or after taking me to dinner?” She pressed a finger to the side of his ribs, applying pressure to a fresh and tender bruise. “Was Eva still on your mouth when we made out? Did you keep your pants on in my room because you’d already fucked Margery a few hours before?”

“Ouch! Hey, I’m sorry,” Sylvain confessed, taking steps back from her hand that inflicted pain too eagerly. “I didn’t know you and I were serious.”

“Oh, that’s right,” Dorothea affirmed. “Sylvain Gautier calls every woman _the monastery’s most beautiful flower_ , at least when he’s in her bedroom.”

She was right, which was the unfortunate part. In truth, the pressure of her hand did not feel so unwelcome, making the welts on his body sting and ache. Any punishment was well-earned, at this point. Maybe that’s why he felt that he and Dorothea had so much chemistry. She didn’t ignore his shitty behavior: she addressed it head-on and held him accountable, even if her methods did hurt.

“Well,” Dorothea dropped her hand and smiled wryly at him. “I gave the girls your room number, so I would recommend finding someplace else to sleep for the night. I’m sure that won’t be hard for you.”

* * *

The monastery grounds had cleared out, everyone returning to their dorms. Nighttime settled over the courtyard like a blanket.

Sylvain knocked once, twice, three times. He searched the dark corners of the vacant grounds for any shadows lurking behind him, wondering if someone had followed him. But at once, the door in front of him opened and Sylvain shoved Ashe inside, closing it abruptly behind them.

“Sylvain!” Ashe exclaimed, startled but without resistance. They both stumbled into Ashe’s dorm room.

“Hey Ashe, how’s it going?” Sylvain awkwardly leaned his back against the heavy door, forcing a smile. He felt a little safer. This really was his last resort. Almost. There was one specific person he’d _never_ impulsively visit like this. “Staying out of trouble?”

“Ah, yes, I suppose.” Ashe looked up at him with wide, soft green eyes. “So, uh, why are you in my room?”

By the bright red shade of Ashe’s entire face, Sylvain realized his unexpected nighttime visit had the potential to be misunderstood.

“It’s not what you’re thinking,” Sylvain laughed, adding with a wink, “Maybe in two years.”

“Huh? I don’t want to know what you mean by that.” Ashe frowned but not without a spark of curiosity. “So why are you here?”

Sylvain opened his mouth to explain—he’d fucked a girl, well, multiple girls, and had his ass beat by some dudes in town who he really thought were going to kill him—but suddenly he didn’t know where to begin. Something about Ashe’s naive expression made him hesitant to share the truth. Maybe it was better to spare this guy from the realities of his scandalous lifestyle. 

He asked instead: “Still keeping up with your daily training to become a _virtuous_ knight? Seizing people’s hearts?”

“Well, yes. But—“ Ashe broke eye contact to slowly take in Sylvain’s face. Inevitable, really, that he’d notice. Gradually, with total unrepressed honesty, Ashe’s youthful features distorted with confusion and then with compassionate fear. “Sylvain, what happened? Your face…” His eyes traveled down his clothing. “There’s blood.”

“You told me not to go bothering people,” Sylvain laughed sheepishly, unable to take his eyes off of Ashe’s honest expression. It was rare. Felix, Dedue, Dimitri, Ingrid: those closest to him did not show emotion like this, raw and unraveling. “Anyway, I got in a fight. I was asking for it, but you should see the other guy.”

Ashe took a second to respond, still eyeing the blood dripping from Sylvain’s nose onto his collar while he replied uneasily, “Ah! I understand. I’m here to help.”

“Thanks, buddy, I knew you’d get it.” Sylvain released a sigh he’d been holding in, sinking against the door. Weary. “I need to hang out in your room until everything calms down. Should only be a day or two, tops.”

Ashe nodded, then turned his back on Sylvain, talking while he searched his wardrobe. “You should, uh, change. I’ll lend you clothes to sleep in. I should have some that are big enough.”

“Thanks again.” Sylvain unbuttoned his jacket, shimmied out of it, then stripped out of his undershirt. He used the white undershirt to wipe his face, cleaning up some of the undried blood, then held onto both filthy garments in one hand.

When Ashe turned back to face him, his face blanched.

“What?” Sylvain shifted his weight to one side. “You're looking at me funny. Did I say something wrong?”

“No! No. Sylvain, you’re…” Ashe’s voice trembled. His eyes traveled down the length of his naked torso. “You’re really injured.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ashe is honest when Sylvain can't be.
> 
> Sylvain is desperate for honesty from Felix, but they both continue lying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the slowburn is real

Sylvain looked down at himself for a full inspection of the damage. His body was a world map of torment, countries marked by bruises and cities marked by blood. Contusions ranging from a sickly yellow to a dark, rich purple were scattered across his abdomen like a disease. Some welts were dotted with broken blood vessels at the surface. Other welts were precise and almost perfectly round, swelling pink and tender. He could almost identify the shape of Mueller’s gold rings. The array of color in contrast to his skin proved bizarre and unbelievable. Such juxtaposition was so unsettling when illustrated on the human body like this. 

“Alright, wow,” he raised his free hand to rest on the side of his head. “Guess it does look pretty bad.”

Ashe’s eyes followed the movement of his hand up to his head and stayed there, fixated in horror.

“Sylvain.” His eyes welled with tears. “I don’t— I don’t understand.”

“What?”

“Your wrists.” The tears spilled over his lower lashes down his cheeks, wetting his light brown freckles. “What did they do to you?”

_Shit_. “Hey, listen, Ashe. It’s nothing!” Sylvain verbally scrambled to clean up the mess he’d created, hiding his wrists behind his back. He really did hate it when he made people cry. “Look, I swear, it was just a stupid street brawl. I do dumb things all the time! You don’t have to worry, I’m fine!”

Ashe wiped away tears with both hands, unconvinced. “Why are you here? Why don’t you ask Mercedes to heal you? Manuela?”

“It’s late. They’re probably asleep. Besides, a real man can’t just bother ladies with his problems like this. Trust me, they’re not into it.”

“But— but you’re injured, and you might have serious internal bleeding, and your wrists. I don’t—”

Ashe choked on a sob.

“I know.” Sylvain’s voice dropped. He stopped smiling, face finally serious. Ashe was no stranger to pain, no stranger to the way life dealt tragedy in lethal doses. Still, he cried so openly. “I’m sorry you had to see me like this. I’m sorry if it scares you. If I had somewhere else to go, I would have. I can still leave if this is too much.”

“Stop!” Ashe exclaimed through his sobs, both hands raised to his face, shoulders shaking. “Just stop! What is wrong with you? Stop worrying about Mercedes, or Manuela, or girls, or me. Stop worrying about everyone else’s feelings and just think about _yourself_ for a change! Sylvain,” Ashe looked up at him, crying freely, “You’re hurt! Can’t you see that?”

There was something holy and pure standing in front of him. An angel shedding heavy tears. Sylvain knew it was not his place to sully it. Even after they’d killed so many, Ashe still thought them all worthy of salvation.

“Another life tip.” Sylvain’s voice was husky, without achieving any note of humor he’d intended. “Sometimes we hurt ourselves, because sometimes we deserve it.”

Ashe’s sobs faded into gasps for air. He refused to look at Sylvain, head lowered with his hands pressed against his eyes.

“You never even mourned,” he whispered hoarsely.

“What?” Sylvain felt a hollowness spreading inside him again.

Ashe swallowed. Quietly, painfully, his whisper wet with sorrow: “When you killed Miklan—you never even mourned his death.”

Hearing his big brother’s name struck something deep in Sylvain that rang hollow in his chest, a cold and lonely echo.

_Miklan_. His scarred face. His betrayed gold eyes. His red hair that matched Sylvain’s, caked with blood and grime.

_Miklan_. Wielding the Lance of Ruin, their family curse. Wielding the pain, rejection, and inequity of his life in battle against his own little brother.

_Miklan_. A monster. Consumed. Grotesque. Gargling his last scream before his final transformation.

_Miklan_. His entrails dangling off of Sylvain’s lance.

“I’m sorry for barging in uninvited,” Sylvain said flatly. Would he still meet Ashe in the eternal flames, despite these honest, holy tears? Sylvain turned the door handle. “I’ll find somewhere else to stay.”

He threw open the door and stepped out into the cool night air, a welcome salve against his exposed and aching body. He had to escape Ashe’s room or he’d end up thinking too much, his least favorite endeavor.

_Kindness was too painful to endure._

The grounds were silent but for a set of several footsteps tapping on stone, three silhouettes approaching at a leisurely pace. Sylvain tensed.

“Wait!” Ashe staggered out after him, tears still shining in streaks down his face. “Sylvain, you don’t have to go. Please just stay!”

The three silhouettes approaching were distinctly different in size, so striking in fact that Sylvain knew exactly who they were.

Dimitri, Dedue, and Felix slowed their steps as they approached, most likely returning from a late-night spar. _Shit. What ridiculous timing_.

Ashe sniffled, hiccuped, then tried to collect himself at the recognition of his friends. Dedue, seeing Ashe cry, took a large stride forward, eyes dark with something much deeper than rage.

“What’s up,” Sylvain began, still shirtless just outside Ashe’s dorm, Ashe crying behind him in the open doorway. “I know what this looks like, but it’s not—“

“Sylvain is in trouble,” Ashe interrupted, swallowing his sobs. “He’s badly injured and he came to my dorm for safety.”

All eyes, previously on Ashe who was crying, were instantly directed toward Sylvain.

Dedue looked gravely down at him, his mouth set in a firm line, and Sylvain knew that there was understanding behind his solemn expression that no one else shared with him. Dimitri was greatly concerned and quickly assessing the situation. Felix, standing a pace behind them both, appeared frozen in place.

It was hard to make out Felix’s expression in the warm glow of orange light pouring from Ashe’s open door, casting odd shadows across his face. He looked a mix of disgusted and furious, eyebrows deeply furrowed. There was anguish, there, too, almost imperceptible.

“I guess I found a new sparring partner,” Sylvain joked in Felix’s direction, suddenly aware of his swollen face, split lip, black eye, broken ribs, and every inch of his profoundly bruised body. His wrists, savagely torn and bloody, were crusting over a rich brown like his eyes in the dim lamplight. Red oozed from the open cuts, the same color as his hair. Sylvain added casually, “I lost to him, too, so I guess I really should train more...”

His voice trailed off. No one was speaking. Felix’s face contorted with a million emotions before his eyes widened in simple horror. He bit his lower lip, hard, and did not speak.

Ashe was still lightly crying in these pure and piteous weeps that made Sylvain’s entire chest ache worse than his body. If Ashe didn’t stop crying for him, Sylvain thought soon he’d be crying, too.

“Wow,” Sylvain said, lacing his fingers behind his head and leaning back into them with his signature nonchalance, still clutching his shirts. “Since when did my personal fuck-ups become such a dramatic stage play? Lighten up, you guys, you’re making me depressed.”

Sylvain’s even-keel was never effective in calming Felix’s nerves. It just upset him more. Even now, with Sylvain joking calmly, relaxed and unassuming, Felix seemed to turn to stone, drawing the sharp pieces of himself tighter and closer than ever before.

A situation that could make even _Felix Hugo Fraldarius_ speechless?

Sylvain felt guilty.

“Listen.” He lowered his arms, looking at all of them at once but holding eye contact with no one. “I made a girl cry. Her dad and his buddies jumped me. It sucked, I was unarmed, but now I’m here. Dorothea—oh yeah, we’re dating I guess,” he added for everyone but Felix, “She told me to avoid my room because I upset some _other_ girls, so I dropped by Ashe’s room to catch a break.”

Sylvain took a deep breath and looked pointedly at Felix. “I’m sorry for worrying you guys,” he said softly. “I mean it.”

Felix’s eyes were glassy in the light and he bristled under the eye contact. 

“Sylvain,” Dimitri began, his voice kind but authoritative, exactly the way you’d expect a golden prince to sound. This was far from the first time he’d had to clean up one of Sylvain’s messes. “Dedue and I will inspect your dormitory room and ensure it is not only safe for you to return to, but fixed to its original state, should it be in disarray. I suggest you spend the night in Felix’s room. Ashe,” Dimitri turned to him and smiled kindly. “You were brave tonight. Please get some rest.”

Dimitri was going to make a good king, Sylvain thought absently and wondered if, in these moments, Felix thought so, too.

Ashe nodded, respecting Dimitri’s plan, unable to look back at Sylvain. He walked into his dorm, looking anguished and defeated.

Felix silently turned his back and strode in the direction of the second-floor dormitory rooms.

Sylvain hesitated, conflicted about whether to stay and apologize to Ashe or quickly catch up to Felix as Dimitri had ordered.

He jogged after Felix, pulling his shirt and jacket back on, afraid to lose him around the corner of the building.

* * *

Felix’s dorm smelled like teakwood and leather.

It was also a shocking, total, and inexplicable _mess_. This amused Sylvain, who felt a fondness grow in his heart at the realization that Felix’s prickly exterior and perfect swordsmanship skills were concealing such a chaotic, haphazard living space. Sylvain could never live like this.

Books were spread across his desk and on the floor, like studying in silence frustrated his senses until all materials went flying. His bed was unmade, sheets and comforter tangled in a pile at the end of the bed. Felix was a restless sleeper, cuddling the blankets before kicking them away. His wall was scuffed, and clothing was strewn about with abandon. It was a wonder how his uniform was so neatly pressed each day.

Felix strode in and placed his sword on its mount, the only thing in its proper place, then sat in his desk chair to quickly tear off his white boots and toss them toward the door. Sylvain narrowly sidestepped the flying boots, the thuds of their landing uncomfortably loud in the silence between them. That explained the scuffed wall. Sylvain pushed the boots out of the door-swing with one foot as he closed it.

He wanted to speak, to joke, to tease—but he kept remembering Felix’s glassy eyes in the orange glow outside Ashe’s room and felt like it wasn’t the time. He would let Felix speak first, when he was ready.

Sylvain knew that Felix hated the silence, too. They both used words as tools to achieve an end, even if their angle was vastly different. Sylvain seduced. Felix struck.

“Where were you attacked?” Felix finally asked, not suggesting that Sylvain take a seat nor rising from his own. He absently fingered the buckle on his left thigh, staring at it intently.

“In the slums.”

“What were you doing there unarmed?”

Felix and Sylvain were long past polite euphemisms. “Getting laid.”

Felix still stiffened in his chair, like whatever rage he caged inside him was pressing against the edges of his body.

“Why settle for a prostitute selling herself in the slums,” he demanded, “When you have your pick of any woman throwing herself at you here?”

Sylvain let his lips slide into a bitter smile. They really had no idea how far he had fallen. How cheap he sold himself for. Just for the hurt.

Felix’s hand stilled on his left leg, fingers curling. “Did you even try to defend yourself?”

“Of course,” Sylvain replied quickly, but then hesitated at the memory. Tonight he would be mostly honest. He owed Felix that much. “Well, sure, kind of. Why would you think I’d go down without a fight?”

“Because,” Felix snapped, looking up from his leg with a fierce glare at Sylvain. “You’re a reckless, self-destructive idiot. How did some lowlife thugs best you, with your advanced combat skills?”

“I was ambushed!” Sylvain held his hands up defensively, letting out a short laugh. “They caught me off guard.”

“Excuses! You’ve been ambushed before.” Felix stood abruptly from his chair and strode up to Sylvain. He grabbed one of his raised forearms.

“Ow! Hey—“

“And this?” Felix pulled Sylvain’s sleeve up to reveal his wounded wrist. “They bound you. This took time. They were at it for a while. You could have resisted, escaped. So why?”

Felix’s grip was hard. His fingers dug in. His voice shook.

“Don’t you think I’ve been through enough today?” Sylvain’s voice was lilting. Playful. The sound disgusted him. “I don’t need your verbal abuse, too, although it _is_ pretty cute.”

“This isn’t—Sylvain!” Felix was choking on his words, sputtering with fury, head lowered as he searched the floor. “Look at yourself! You can’t keep…”

Sylvain looked down at him darkly. “What? Say it. Stop holding back.”

Felix looked up and matched the intensity of his gaze. “Miklan is _dead_ , Sylvain. You can’t endure punishment for _his_ sins. You can’t keep living in his shadow.”

“Like you live in Glenn’s?”

Felix released his arm and snarled.

“I’m not you, Felix,” Sylvain continued in a low, soft voice. “I know Miklan is dead. I was the one who killed him, remember? I can still smell it. The only sins I endure punishment for are my own.”

Felix’s hands clenched into fists.

“Your actions are selfish!” He growled, throwing one hand to the side. “We’re all privy to your relations, your scandals. They drag us all down.”

“How?” Sylvain asked, voice thick with mirth and venom. He raised one hand and gestured at the space between them. “I don’t see anyone else getting involved. _You’re_ certainly not fucking me.”

Felix froze, eyes shocked and wide and hurt, like he was suddenly Felix from ten years ago.

And deep within himself, Sylvain crumpled like his insides were made of paper and hurting Felix was just dropping a match down his own throat. His heart curled at the edges, black and charred, while heavy smoke threatened to escape through his eyes.

He burned and burned and would continue to burn. The eternal flames crept ever closer.

“Ah, Felix, listen.” Sylvain pulled his sleeve down. “Just forget it. I didn’t mean to say that.”

“Fine,” Felix hissed. Clearly, everything was not fine. Maybe Sylvain _had_ meant to say that.

“We’ve all been through some pretty fucked up stuff,” Sylvain continued. “Our vices get us through them. You train. I chase pretty girls. It’s all the same in the end.”

“Hardly!” Felix asserted viciously. “Your scandals and my training are incomparable. Your pathetic attempt at weighing them equal while standing there,” Felix gestured to all of him, “like that? It makes me sick.”

“This?” Sylvain looked down at his filthy, blood-stained clothing. He smiled. “This was just bad luck.”

Felix scoffed, “Bad luck? Inevitable. You are as reckless in your personal affairs as you are on the battlefield. If you continue to challenge Fate, it will lay claim to your selfish, good-for-nothing existence.”

Sylvain stepped toward Felix, closing the distance between them, an indignance and a hunger flaring up inside him. He stood at his full height over Felix.

“You keep saying I’m selfish,” he asserted, gazing down at him, his smile vanished. “So who am I hurting but _myself_ , Felix? The people I fuck don’t care about me. They want my crest and my wealth.”

Sylvain needed to hear it. _He needed to know Felix cared._

“You’re truly a halfwit if you—”

Sylvain cut Felix off. He grabbed Felix’s hand and pulled Felix toward him.

Sylvain forcefully wrapped Felix’s calloused fingers around his own throat. Felix’s hand was trapped under Sylvain’s, and together their fingers encased Sylvain’s neck, gripping tighter.

Felix’s expression was both alarmed and fuming, a look that made Sylvain even hungrier.

He said darkly, “My own brother thought that maybe if he strangled the power out of me with his bare hands, he could swallow it and finally be loved.” He tightened their hands around his own throat. They flexed against each other, tension growing. “Who did that hurt but me, Felix?”

_Say_ _it hurt you_ , Sylvain thought desperately. _Say it hurts now._

Felix tried to yank his hand away but Sylvain’s grip was firm. Felix’s fingers stayed there, pressed against Sylvain’s pulse which was pounding through his throat.

“Enough!” Felix ground out. His glare was hot but his eyebrows fell, shifting his look from resentment to anguish in the most subtle of ways. “Enough.”

Sylvain let Felix slide his hand free from under his, Felix’s fingers brushing Sylvain’s throat and collarbone as they escaped.

He let the moment pass, his desperation thumping in his chest and throat, the sound filling his head.

Felix wasn’t making eye contact with him and Sylvain wanted anything, _anything_ to fill the hollowness inside him: _an answer, a punch, Felix’s fingers around his throat, Felix’s hurt out in the open._

Silence prevailed.

Another missed chance for honesty.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sylvain has a realization and a nightmare. They're the same thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: rape** for this chapter
> 
> I seriously LOSE MY ENTIRE MIND every time someone comments. I can't describe how overwhelmed with happiness it makes me. Fic writing is such a vulnerable thing.

“What about Dorothea?” Felix finally asked flatly without looking at Sylvain. “You’re surely hurting her. Is she not your girlfriend? You’ve been on more than one date.” Then, with some petulance: "Unbelievable, given your usual ways."

Sylvain blinked. He’d forgotten about Dorothea. Felix’s eyes flickered to meet his while Sylvain said, “Oh yeah, sure. I guess she’s my girlfriend.”

Felix’s shoulders slumped slightly like he’d been holding his breath. “Good,” he said. “One person to satiate your needs is better than a dozen strangers.”

Sylvain was a little surprised that Felix gave a shit about his dating life, but if sticking with one person would allow Felix to stop living at the edge of his seat whenever Sylvain was around, pulling all of the sharp pieces of himself tightly into his body, Sylvain would make an effort.

“Do you like her?” Felix pressed dully.

“I like her _ass_ ,” Sylvain laughed, an uncomfortable sound in the current atmosphere. To be honest, Dorothea kind of scared him. He was into that, but he didn’t want to freak out Felix any more for the night.

Felix rolled his eyes. “Obeying your base instinct so openly is disgraceful. Have you ever pursued anyone using your brain?”

 _You,_ Sylvain thought seriously. “You,” Sylvain teased playfully.

Felix looked startled, briefly vulnerable, before his face contorted into a glare. “Fool,” he said, but his insult lacked strength.

“Every day of my life,” Sylvain returned.

Felix sighed loudly, almost a groan, before he pointed toward his unmade bed. “Sit over there. I will heal you.”

Sylvain lifted an eyebrow. “With Faith?”

“Yes,” Felix said firmly, unbuttoning his vest.

Sylvain walked over to the bed and plopped down on the mattress.

“Do you need to strip to heal me?” He asked coyly.

Felix shrugged out of his vest and tossed it toward his wardrobe where it landed on the floor. “No. But you do. I’m too inexperienced to heal through clothing. Take off your uniform.”

“I wish I could hear you say that more often.” Sylvain smiled the flirtatious smile he flashed to everyone as he undressed. “Commands from you are sexy.”

Felix ignored him, rolling up the white sleeves of his undershirt. Something about Felix in a slight state of undress made Sylvain swallow. He dropped his bloody shirt onto the floor.

“Who taught you how to heal?” He asked casually.

“Mercedes. Give me your hand.” Felix held out his left hand, open and palm up. Sylvain placed his left hand in it, the touch resonating somewhere inside him.

“Why the sudden interest?”

Felix paused. Gently holding Sylvain’s hand in his, Felix lifted his other hand to hover over the deep lacerations on his wrist. Who knew fishing wire could be so lethal? He replied, “To be more useful on the battlefield.”

“You’re plenty useful. You’re the most skilled swordsman in our class.”

“I know.” Felix concentrated. A blue glow began to emanate from his downturned palm and fingertips, which tenderly brushed the flesh of his wrists. “We are experts at taking lives. We all expect noble deaths. But death is not noble.”

The glow felt cool and soothing, like the night air just outside, as it whispered across his skin and sank like heavy fog into his wounds. Sylvain shivered.

“So you want to prevent death?” Sylvain asked quietly, afraid to disrupt Felix’s careful concentration.

Felix nodded. He added just as quietly, “Especially reckless death.”

“ _My_ death?” Sylvain asserted, and the magic flow wavered.

Felix gritted his teeth. “Stop distracting me.”

“Sorry, sorry. I’ll be good.”

Sylvain held perfectly still. The sting of his wrists faded first, the furious pain subdued into a quiet buzz. Then he stared in awe as the open cuts were pulled together like invisible sutures were holding them closed. No pain left behind, only an irritating, tender itch and dried blood from earlier.

No wonder soldiers fell in love with healers.

Felix released his hand and picked up the other, using Faith again to ease the ache that Sylvain thought he had deserved, but realized he felt better without.

As the final cut was carefully closed, Felix looked up to give further instruction and Sylvain leaned forward and impulsively pressed his lips against Felix’s, whose mouth parted for him mid-breath and softened mid-heartbeat and responded mid-kiss in a long and hot and time-stopping moment.

They kissed.

Just once.

Their very first.

And Felix’s lips were soft, so soft. Softer than he’d imagined. Warmer than he’d imagined. That warmth swelled inside his hollow chest like kindling a fire to survive the ashen daylight that congealed over the battlefield.

Felix was still clutching his hand.

Then he released it, separated their mouths, stumbled back a step and inhaled sharply.

The world, which had stilled to a deferential silence, rushed back into motion.

Sylvain raised a hand to his mouth, reverently touched where Felix had just been, and waited for the verbal abuse.

“Why did you do that?” Felix demanded breathlessly, visibly blushing, one arm raised in front of him like an instinctive block in battle.

“As a thank you,” Sylvain said casually, still fingering his lower lip. “I owed you one.”

Felix was still blushing. Strands of midnight hair had escaped his bun to frame his face. Sylvain watched Felix prickle at his words, disappearing again as he pulled every vulnerable part of himself closer and tighter and deeper inside.

“You don’t _owe_ me anything for _healing_ you.” He took a single step back, needing distance.

Sylvain felt panic rising in his gut. Why had he kissed him? _Because he was beautiful. Because he was healing the hurt. Because he was Felix._

“A kiss just seemed appropriate.”

“ _Appropriate_?” Felix was incensed again.

That adjective, thrown back at Sylvain, felt terrible.

Their first kiss: _appropriate_.

That was all wrong. He didn’t mean it. How could he take it back? He had already said it. Had already leaned in on instinct, kissed him with experience behind it. The damage was done.

Felix looked wounded—like before, when Sylvain had mentioned fucking him, and before that when he’d mentioned fucking everyone else—so Sylvain stayed silent.

“Your body is not a method of repayment.” Felix stared at his torso, at the bruises scattered across it. “Not for favors or for sins.”

How sad, that a first kiss Sylvain had pictured in his fantasies for years he ruined all by himself in an instant.

“I’m sorry,” he said, running a hand through the loose waves of his hair. “I guess it’s…”

_What he’d always wanted._

“Habit,” Felix finished. “I know.”

Sylvain exhaled with resignation. It was too late now to reverse it: the kiss, the damage, the reputation he had earned. Even Felix saw him not in a new light, but without light, fallen from the grace of the Goddess with finality.

Yet, Felix raised both of his hands to Sylvain’s face. Felix grazed his injuries with the tips of his fingers. Felix used Faith to heal him.

And Sylvain didn’t need the Goddess.

He had fallen from grace, sure, but he had also fallen deeply in love.

And so, that was it: he felt both mortal and immortal, close to death but impossibly alive, a dichotomy he would simply accept.

For a moment, he was a little more than okay.

“Just hold still this time,” Felix ordered.

“Don’t worry, I won’t push my luck,” Sylvain laughed lightly, the ache in his jaw withdrawing steadily with Felix’s touch, like releasing carbon dioxide from his lungs. He imagined seeing his pain in the air like seeing his breath in the cold.

Felix moved on to healing Sylvain’s torso next. There was still a warmth rising between them, an unspoken yet incredibly loud force, as Felix’s palms and fingers slid slowly across every bruise and mark and contusion that marred Sylvain’s body like a history of mortification. Felix’s hands hovered over them, his fingers grazing lightly, torturous in the best way.

Sylvain’s mouth was dry. He did not speak. When he swallowed, it sounded embarrassingly loud.

“Someone was wearing rings,” Felix commented, gaze focused on the welt his hands attended to.

“That would be Mueller,” Sylvain said dryly, rolling his eyes. “Tacky.”

“How many attackers were there?”

“Four.”

The blue glow from Felix’s hands wavered, then steadied.

“They should be—” Felix’s voice was a hiss. He stumbled to change the direction of his sentence, “Arrested.”

“Nah, it’s a father’s duty to defend his daughter’s honor,” Sylvain said easily. “And let me tell you, her honor needs all the defense it can get after my dick was—“

“Shut up!” Felix interrupted aggressively. His magic dissipated. His open hands hovered awkwardly over Sylvain’s left hip. “I don’t want to hear about it. It’s repulsive. Why do you always have to— Nevermind. Just shut up.”

“Okay, okay,” Sylvain tried to ameliorate. Bad habits died hard—or worse, just never died. “I won’t over-share the gory details. Hey, Felix?” Felix glanced up to meet his eyes. Sylvain was starting to understand. “I’ll try not to bring that stuff up anymore, alright?”

“That’s not—I don’t care what you _talk_ about.” Felix’s glare was sharp and hurt. For a moment, Sylvain thought he was going to cry like he used to, but that would be too crazy. The Felix in front of him now was only resentful.

_If Felix didn’t care about what he talked about, then why was he so pissed off all the time?_

Felix was tensed, like whatever it was he held inside was threatening to boil up and out of his mouth.

_Well, actions did speak louder than words._

Sylvain rested a hand over one of Felix’s, covering it completely. Felix froze. Sylvain said sincerely, “I’ll be better.”

_Maybe Sylvain’s words weren’t the problem. At least, not the only problem._

Felix released air through his teeth, then ground out with sharp enunciation, “Just bite your tongue and let me finish this.”

Sylvain smiled a real smile, meant only for Felix, and teased, “Will _you_ bite it for me? Just a little?”

“ _Off,_ yes.” Felix returned, his edges softening. The humor helped this time. “And I’ll let you drown in your own blood.”

“I wouldn’t want to die any other way.”

Sylvain was almost sure he saw Felix’s lips twitch into a smirk.

_Goddess. He’d never be bored with Felix. Not with this tumult of emotions._

After Felix had expended all of the magic he had stored to heal what he could, he passed out quickly on his bed, still wearing his clothes. He’d probably overdone it.

Sylvain laid down next to him, folding one arm under his head to observe Felix’s sleeping face. His delicate features were finally at ease, no longer furrowed in a glare. His sleeping face hadn’t changed since he was a kid. The thought was cliche, but Sylvain wanted to reach out a hand and brush his hair back tenderly. He didn’t do it.

As he faded in and out of sleep, Sylvain whispered an apology to Felix (about slacking when he should be training, about annoying him when he should show some self-control, and for fucking around when—he was just starting to realize this—maybe he was hurting Felix, too.)

If the roles were reversed, Sylvain thought grimly, if he had to watch Felix fuck around and come back to to the monastery injured like he’d just endured some gangrape in the slums, he’d lose his fucking mind. He’d burn the cathedral to the fucking ground. He’d curse the Goddess, throat raw from screaming.

It was okay when it was Sylvain, though. As long as he played it cool, his friends would turn a blind eye out of discomfort and (not their fault) preoccupation with their own deep, traumatic shit.

Sylvain rolled over, his back to Felix while he tried to fall asleep, careful not to touch him.

* * *

Sylvain had nightmares all night.

The worst one played out slowly. It was Mueller and his men.

Sylvain was in that back alley in the slums again, eerily lit by the setting sun, but he wasn’t the one getting beat. He was the one watching, like the beardless man had watched him, paralyzed and voiceless. Felix was on his hands and knees, two rough hands holding his hips in place while a fat, filthy cock forced its way into his ass and he choked on another in his mouth. Fingers were shoved between his teeth to prop open his jaw and keep him from biting down.

Unlike Sylvain, Felix put up a solid fight, but also unlike Sylvain, he was smaller. He was subdued. He was brutalized.

Sylvain was wading through the air which held him back with a weight he could not combat, something all nightmares did to prolong the torture. Felix’s amber eyes were fierce and seething and infinitely betrayed, directed right at Sylvain, who could not respond. He could only scream soundlessly.

And they fucked Felix in almost every position Sylvain had been fucked in. Others showed up, too. The illogical and apocalyptic nature of nightmares. Other people that Sylvain could vaguely recall having messed around with in the past whose names he never bothered to learn lined up to fuck Felix just like they’d fucked Sylvain, across all these years. The nightmare weight crippled him, time dragging on.

Two people hoisted Felix up, holding him in the air by his bent legs. Mueller shoved three thick fingers into Felix’s used asshole, cum spilling out, and roughly spread it open for Sylvain to see. “It’s your turn,” he said. “Isn’t this what you’ve always wanted? To fuck him just like this?”

 _No_ , Sylvain thought, screaming in vain. _This pain was_ his _pain to endure. Not Felix’s pain. Never intended for Felix._

_Sylvain was in love with Felix, he had just learned so thoroughly to never love himself. How had it come to this?_

When Sylvain looked up at Felix’s face, Felix was crying.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sylvain receives orders from his father.
> 
> ***CW: sexual assault***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> slowburn character study continues

Sylvain shot up in bed, throwing out an arm that smacked the wall, gasping for air.

“You’re finally awake.” Felix was tugging on his white boots by the doorway, already in his uniform.

“Felix!” Sylvain said, a little too desperately, drenched in sweat from his nightmare.

“Sylvain.” Felix eyed him. 

“Are you, uh, headed out already?”

“It’s late. I’ve been up.” Felix pulled his eyes away from Sylvain to finish adjusting his right boot. “I wanted to let you sleep in. I healed what I could last night with my beginner skills, but you still need more time to recover. You should visit Manuela today.”

“Right, right.” Sylvain wondered if Felix could tell he was having a nightmare. He was uncomfortably sweaty in his bedsheets. “You waited for me to wake up before leaving?”

Felix looked back at him and his cheeks reddened. “Don’t be so flattered. This is my room. I didn’t want you here alone making a mess.”

Sylvain smiled fondly. “Felix, your room is already a mess.”

“Whatever.” Felix stood. He grabbed his sword. “You’re awake now, so I’m leaving.”

“Alright. I’ll get out of here, too.” Sylvain threw the sheets off and hopped off the mattress. “Hey, Felix?” Felix adjusted his hilt on his belt and looked up. “Thank you. For everything.”

He strode toward the door and paused with his hand on the handle, staring down at it as he said, “Save your gratitude. It’s meaningless if this just happens again. So in the future, protect yourself.”

* * *

Ashe brought it up. Felix brought it up.

It was starting to feel like no one could avoid name-dropping Sylvain’s dead brother. His only brother.

_Y’know, the one he killed._

Sylvain sat at the edge of the dock, trying to spot the shadow of a fish, but having difficulty with the bright sun glinting off the water’s surface.

The horror of his past (but very recent) actions swept over Sylvain in great crashing waves that he wished would fill him up, every empty aching inch of him, but the tides were low and the waves were pulled back.

Logically, his friends should understand. Dimitri lost his parents, Felix and Ingrid lost Glenn, and Dedue lost… well, everyone. But Sylvain had not “lost” Miklan. He had loved him, feared him, eventually hated him.

_Then, he had killed him._

Wasn’t that so much worse?

Miklan was never a hero like Glenn or a king or a lover. He was a monster. It was the monstrous part of him that Sylvain clung to, even in memory, like something he’d always feared but now desperately missed. Without Miklan to hurt him, and without Miklan to blame for the hurt that Sylvain pursued on his own, an absence stretched from top to bottom and side to side of Sylvain’s chest. Vast. Purposeless.

A fish leapt out of the water, gone in an instant.

Sylvain had never felt so, so alone.

* * *

Sylvain slid two expert fingers into Dorothea, who was dripping wet and arching into his palm. Cusses and compliments tumbled from her parted lips as he brought her to her third orgasm of the night, using nothing but his hands and mouth.

“You’ve truly earned your reputation,” she gasped, gripping the sheets with both hands as he slipped his fingers out and licked them. “It’s as if you know my body better than I do.”

Sylvain chuckled, fingers lingering by his lips. “Glad I didn’t disappoint.”

“Disappoint? You’ve outdone yourself.” Dorothea collapsed onto her back on the pillows, glancing sideways at him without turning her head. “I speak with complete sincerity: I have never had a man make me orgasm once in my entire life, let alone three times in one night. You deserve your exalted status.”

“Status as what?” Sylvain smirked, resting his chin on his hand with his elbow propped on the pillow. He leaned in close to her. “The local studhorse?”

“Sure,” Dorothea sighed blissfully. “Whatever they call you, you’ve earned it.”

Sylvain’s smirk widened to a grin, but his heart thudded dully inside his chest.

“Kiss me,” Dorothea prompted, sliding her right hand through his hair to rest on the nape of his neck.

Sylvain tensed slightly. The last person he’d kissed was Felix.

“You don’t want me to fuck you now?” He asked crassly instead, sliding his tongue between his straight white teeth in a taunt. “Is Dorothea Arnault simply _not like_ the _other_ girls?”

Dorothea let out a short laugh. “Of course I’m not. How many dates have we been on now? Eight? Sylvain, I’m proud of you. It must be _so_ _hard_.”

“Something is, yeah.” Sylvain pressed his lower body against the side of Dorothea’s thigh, dropping his head down to lick and bite at the dip between her neck and shoulder.

“I’m not going to fuck you,” Dorothea sang brightly.

Sylvain spoke between the kisses he trailed down to her breasts. “You mean you don’t want to get impregnated by my crest baby,” he flicked his tongue playfully across her nipple, teasing it until it was erect, “And force me into an arranged marriage against my will?”

Dorothea moaned at the slow, unbearable strokes of his tongue.

“No,” she stated strenuously. “With my luck, the baby would be born crestless anyway, then you’d just abandon us.”

Sylvain paused his torment. He sat up to look at her seriously.

“Dorothea, do you really believe that?”

“Believe what? Don’t stop. That felt really good.”

“Listen for a minute.” Sylvain’s voice had dropped an octave. Dorothea’s expression sobered. “I know people call me trash. They’re not even wrong. But if my child is born with or without a crest, it doesn’t matter. I’ll always love them. I mean that. Always.”

Dorothea sat in curious silence. Sylvain took the opportunity to continue. “The crest system allows inequity to prosper. When I inherit the Gautier title and lands, I will personally see that it is eradicated in my territory.”

“But your crest is a gift,” she said, looking at him in awe.

“And a curse,” he added.

_A curse that promised he would fuck, and kill, and fuck again, smiling the entire time._

Dorothea nodded. She understood. She pulled Sylvain gently toward her with both hands behind his head, pressing his face into her long dark hair, resting on the pillow beside her.

“I’m so happy you’re mine,” she said intensely, marking the side of his neck with a hickey, dark and blood red.

Sylvain tried not to feel uneasy.

* * *

Sylvain wondered if a funeral would have helped. With moving on, processing the trauma, whatever. Closure.

He’d been to plenty. Always a real big to-do among nobility. Going to a funeral was just like going to a wedding: all dressed up to awkwardly mingle with extended family and friends, eat food but not too much food, drink champagne but not too much champagne. At a funeral, the “’til death do us part” now had a little zest to it.

Miklan never got a funeral. Obviously.

Glenn’s death was beautiful and immortalized, which Felix hated a lot. That made sense. Death was supposed to be a tragedy, not a celebration of heroism.

Miklan’s death was grotesque and purposefully forgotten, and Sylvain still wasn’t sure how he felt about that. He definitely didn’t feel like a hero.

So when he was asked to return home for the first time since arriving at Garreg Mach, Sylvain didn’t know why anger flared inside him. He didn’t know why his first thought was, _You should have called me home after my brother died. Not now._

His father’s orders were still worse than he could stomach on his own.

* * *

He found Dedue in the greenhouse, where he expected to find him, crouched beside the edge of the flowerbed and smoothing over the dark soil with the palms of his large hands. The temperature difference between the outside and the glass enclosure made Sylvain inhale deeply, appreciating the humid air, heavy and perfumed. He paused in the entrance. An almost imperceptible magic glow was emanating from Dedue’s palms, like Faith from Felix’s palms, seeping into the damp soil.

Dedue’s movements were careful and meditative. If he sensed Sylvain’s presence, he gave no sign of acknowledgment.

There was a stillness in the greenhouse that Sylvain had experienced nowhere else. In this place to create and nourish life, watching Dedue’s calloused hands interact tenderly with the earth, with air that tasted like fields he had never been to… Sylvain couldn’t breathe.

He cleared his throat to disrupt the silence and asked, “You’re this good with your hands and yet you still won’t wingman in town with me? The ladies would love you.”

Dedue did not reply. The peace was oppressive.

Sylvain tried again: “So uh, what are you doing, exactly?”

“Infusing the seeds with magic.”

“That’s cool,” he supplied awkwardly, leaning back against the frame of the entryway. Finally, the silence was broken. “Will that make them stronger?”

“That is one simple explanation. Yes.”

“Can I help?”

Dedue did not pause from his work. “No. You do not know the necessary technique.”

Sylvain let out a short laugh. “Dedue, I really appreciate how straightforward you are. I can always trust you to tell me like it is. Am I bothering you?”

“No.”

“Alright. Can I ask you a couple of questions, then?”

Dedue nodded.

“Imagine, hypothetically, you never ended up with His Highness. Like, you’re still… here, and everything, but you ended up alone.”

Dedue’s hands slowly closed, the last of his magic sinking into the earth. Sylvain had his attention.

“And let’s say, you had nowhere to go. No family or place in society.”

Dedue rose to his full height. He brushed off the knees of his black pants. His gaze left its concentration on the buried seeds to level itself gravely down at Sylvain. “I am imagining it.”

“Okay. So my question is: would it be so unreasonable to, say, join a band of thieves?”

Dedue stayed silent to consider his question. After some serious thought, he responded, “No.”

“Okay! That’s what I’ve been thinking.”

Dedue studied him. “What are your other questions? You stated earlier that you had a couple.”

Sylvain shifted his weight back and forth between his feet while he unpacked his thoughts.

“What else could you do, right? We all need someone. When you’ve got nothing left, is it so crazy to think that some lowlife thieves could become your ‘found family’ or something? I’m not really sure where I’m going with this.”

“Sylvain.”

“Yeah?”

“Without His Highness, I would not have had any will to live.”

Sylvain stood very still. He held eye contact with Dedue.

“Many men from Duscur have been forced into positions that are dishonorable. The kingdom has not welcomed us. Yet, His Highness has promised me he would build a Kingdom that is proud to boast of Duscur blood. That Kingdom will forgive even the thieves that you speak of.”

Sylvain swallowed. “What if you were ordered to kill them? The thieves, I mean.”

“I would do as I am ordered.”

Sylvain looked down at Dedue’s hands at his sides. It was hard to believe that hands so gentle could wield an axe so mercilessly.

“Without question?”

“I will do what is best to protect His Highness and his Kingdom.”

“Yeah,” Sylvain sighed. “I figured you’d say that. Man, I wish I had what you have.”

“What do I have that you do not?”

“Faith.” Sylvain was quiet for a moment before quickly shaking himself free. “Anyway, Dedue, thanks for putting up with my rambling.” He winked. “I’m serious about you being my wingman, by the way. One of these days you won’t be able to say no.”

* * *

Sylvain fully intended to go to the training grounds to prepare for the lance tournament. He hadn’t forgotten. Felix rarely had any expectations of Sylvain these days, but participating in the lance tournament seemed to be his only one. Sylvain didn’t want to let him down.

Also, his father’s orders weighed heavily in the back of his mind. He was itching for a distraction. He figured he would pull a Felix: obsessively train as a healthy daytime coping mechanism to avoid processing real feelings.

He delivered just _one_ cheesy pickup line to a woman on the bridge. _Just one_. Out of habit.

And she walked with him the entire way there, then through the doors, then remained awkwardly close at his heels while he strode around the edge of the arena to retrieve a weapon. No one else was there yet. He knew Felix would show up shortly, as he always did around this time in the afternoon. He had to evade this bridge stranger.

“It has been lovely chatting with you,” he said, turning to face her. She was unusually tall for a woman, standing eye-level with him, her auburn hair cropped short around her ears. “Tragic that the duties of training must force our chance encounter to come to a premature end.”

“I’m sure you’ve put your duties on hold before.” She pressed forward.

“Of course not, I’m an honorable knight. Duty always comes first.” He stepped back.

“You’ve been described with many adjectives. Honorable is not one of them.”

Sylvain let out a short, nervous laugh. In his periphery, he thought he saw the door to the training grounds swing open and shut.

“Alright, I have no defense for that. Still, I’m here to train today.”

“I can help you.”

Sylvain’s left heel bumped against the wooden rack of training swords. He glanced behind him to see what was blocking his escape and when he turned his head back forward a firm, wet mouth claimed his with aggression. A tongue slid in between his teeth and pressed his own tongue down to the base of his mouth with force.

Sylvain made a muffled sound of surprise at the kiss, at the hand gripping his hip, at the other hand gripping a fistful of his hair. Wow. This would have been hot if it had come from literally anyone else but this incredibly pushy stranger.

When she yanked his head back and broke her mouth-assault for air, Sylvain pressed a hand against her shoulder and raised another between their faces.

“Hold up,” he said quickly. “Wait.”

She smacked his hand out of the way and closed the space between them, crowding his body with hers. Then there was another overwhelming kiss to silence his protests, the hand on his hip sliding around his lower back to grip a handful of his ass.

“Stop for a sec,” he managed, just before she pulled his lower lip between her teeth and bit down _hard._ Sylvain’s eyes shot closed and he winced in pain. A thigh was slotted between his legs and raised to grind against him, the hand gripping his ass yanking his hips forward to match the rhythm.

He scrambled to shake her off, both hands pushing at her shoulders now while his feet shifted in an effort to create space between his crotch and her aggressive leg to no avail. He recoiled from her rough kisses, afraid she was going to bite him again. The worst part was, he could feel himself getting hard, his body a slut for the pain that his brain wanted desperately to escape. A traitorous body. A broken body.

“You’re in my way.”

The mouth freed his. The leg slid out from between his. The hands released him.

He knew that voice.

Sylvain opened his eyes, having forgotten he had closed them.

He knew that voice with its annoyance, its anger, its petulance, and propriety.

Sylvain took a shaky breath, looking at Felix with unconcealed relief.

“Move.” Felix stood with his hand resting on his left hip, conveniently close to the hilt of his sheathed blade.

He reached with his free hand to grab a training sword from the rack Sylvain was pressed against, drawing it out in one swift and flashy movement with speed that made a statement Felix didn’t need to make using his words.

The woman glared at him indignantly. “We were just leaving.”

“No. _You_ were just leaving, you pest.” Felix pointed his training sword at her. “He clearly said he came here to train. Get out of our sight.”

“Are you seriously pointing a wooden sword at me?”

Felix’s other hand suddenly gripped his real sword with purpose and Sylvain grabbed him by the shoulder.

“Sorry,” Sylvain said to her, flashing a counterfeit smile. His hold on Felix tightened. “Duty calls. I’m sure we’ll see each other again sometime.”

Tension crackled between Felix and the woman.

When she finally left, Sylvain released the breath he had been holding. Felix released a series of vulgar expletives.

“Calm down, Felix.” Definitely the wrong thing to say. The swearing increased. “I can’t believe you were about to dual wield against a total stranger with a real blade in the training grounds. That’s cause for expulsion.”

“Why did you apologize?” Felix shouted.

“Because I led her on,” Sylvain explained. “I saw her on the bridge, said some stupid one-liner, and she followed me here.”

“So suddenly complimenting a stranger is an invitation for assault?”

“Woah, woah! It wasn’t… assault. Felix. Hey!”

Felix had lifted his training sword above his head and threw it toward the straw dummy in the center of the room. Then Felix looked at him, misty-eyed and seething.

“Fe, listen to me. I’m fine.”

“You’re bleeding.”

“What? Where?”

“Your mouth, you fool. Can’t you feel it?”

Sylvain thumbed his lower lip. It came away red.

“It doesn’t hurt.” It stung a lot, now that Felix pointed it out. “I’m okay.”

“Why didn’t you push her off more forcefully?”

“I was getting there! It was happening really fast.”

“Oh, so another ‘ambush’ you’re incapable of defending yourself against.”

“That’s not—”

“What if I hadn’t shown up? What then? Would you have just let her touch you however she wanted? Use you however she pleased?”

“What? Of course not. Felix, I was—”

Felix waved him silent. “No. I’m sorry.”

Sylvain opened his mouth to argue but stopped. Felix’s eyes were welled with tears.

“Okay, now why are _you_ apologizing?”

“I didn’t come here to yell at you. It’s not even helping the… situation. It’s just that seeing you like that is… Anyway, I’m sorry.”

“It’s cool. You don’t have anything to apologize for—you’ve said way worse—but I accept. Thanks for, uh, showing up when you did.”

Felix clenched his jaw tight and looked away. “You attract disgusting attention.”

“Haven’t I always?” Sylvain started to make a joke about Ingrid’s grandma when he was eight and that other guy when he was eleven, but Felix’s eyes were widening with something akin to a horrific realization, so he stopped the joke short.

“My father contacted me,” Sylvain said instead. “He called me home.”


End file.
